The Turkish Air Force (Turkish: Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) is a branch of the Turkish Armed Forces. It is one of the oldest air forces in the world, and with a current inventory of more than 930 aircraft, ranks 3rd in NATO in terms of fleet size, behind the USAF and RAF. Supported by the TuAF's long-range in-flight refueling capability, the fighter jets of the Turkish Air Force can participate in international operations and exercises on all continents of the world.
In 1984 the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) was established and Turkey started to locally produce fighter aircraft under license; including a total of 232 F-16 Fighting Falcon (Block 30/40/50) aircraft for the Turkish Air Force. The TuAF had previously received 8 F-16s that were directly purchased from the United States, bringing the number of total F-16s received by the Turkish Air Force to 240. TAI is currently building 30 new F-16 Block 50+ aircraft for the TuAF and is applying a CCIP upgrade on the existing fleet of Block 30/40/50 F-16s, which will bring all of them to the Block 50+ standard.
On July 11, 2002 Turkey became a Level 3 partner of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) development program, and on January 25, 2007, Turkey officially joined the production phase of the JSF program, agreeing to initially purchase 116 F-35A Lightning II aircraft.
A total of four Boeing 737 AEW&C MESA Peace Eagle aircraft (together with ground support systems) were ordered by the Turkish Air Force, with an option for two more aircraft. Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) is the primary subcontractor for the Peace Eagle parts production, aircraft modification, assembly and tests. Another subcontractor, Havelsan, is responsible for system analysis and software support.
Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force in case of a nuclear conflict, but their use requires the approval of NATO.
Larger numbers of planes does you no good if they’re destroyed before they even see the enemy.